The 5T Incident - What went wrong, and how can we stop it?

Interesting that we have more replies. Now, here is the final part of this exercise:

Go back to the questions below:

• What made you participate in this incident?

• What made you participate in this thread?

Look at your answers. What common points/words can you locate between the answers to these questions? What conclusion can you draw from this piece of data?

(Reposting because I need this as a page-topper)

"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer

Clearly we really enjoyed communicating with each other in both the draft and the thread, convincing each other what we were doing wasn't wrong because we had too much fun being a little community and then chatting in here so we could bond and learn together over the incident rather than feel bad all on our own.

The solution here is we should just use forum game threads if we want to goof around as a community, not the stuff on the wiki that serves a legitimate purpose.

Edited by mightymewtron on Sep 11th 2020 at 10:20:03 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

The big connecting factor for me is the community. While my primary reason for posting there (fun, stress relief) and for posting here (working through my feelings and realizations, atonement) are different, in both cases the spirit of unity are what kept me around, the allure of speaking with other tropers I almost never interact with.

I guess clean up work feels lonely. I wanted to feel connected to the wider body of tropers beyond the left-side forums, and that's what made me get involved both here and back on the TLP draft.

Thank you for the questions, Lu. It's Friday where I am but I'm not planning to make an official appeal until maybe tomorrow. I need more time to get my thoughts together, plus I have more things to focus on today than my ban (such as my new puppy).

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Ok, to start, I'm copy-pasting my answers for a clear comparison.

---

"What made you participate in this incident?"

• I was simply under the delusion that we were "making history" by setting records, so I thought to join in just to be a part of it. Granted, I never cared for the draft itself and found some further edits on it to be in bad faith, but I was in purely for the spectacle. It didn't help I was on caffeine during this incident just to stay up all night to watch it unfold.

---

"What made you participate in this thread?"

• Simple. I'm looking to atone for my bad behavior for this whole mess. While I could've done that easily in Edit Banned, I find that with this thread, I can connect with members who're on even circumstances as I am and share our thoughts about how we improve from here on out, whereas in Edit Banned, I can't really do that because of rules forbidding chat between banned users.

---

Reviewing my answers, I find one thing that makes it all connect; my desire to connect with my fellow members. Even though the incident and this thread are diametrically opposed to each other, both in intent and outcome, I do see a Commonality Connection between the two. Perhaps I lost sight of my logical reasoning behind maintaining order on the site and just wanted to be involved more with the community. That's the best way I can put this in words.

When is the ban lifted today?

Content Warning: My posts may involve my actions dealing with R-rated or Not Safe for Work content. Same for my edit history.

15:00 BST, which according to Google was 29 minutes ago.

EDIT: I meant this is when we can start appealing.

Edited by mightymewtron on Sep 11th 2020 at 11:08:20 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

You need to ask in the ban appeals thread.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

The common thing between my responses is that we were all having a good time and connecting with other TLP users. In the draft, it was because we were unwinding and having fun, while in this thread, it was because we were all atoning for our behavior and talking about it with others.

The conclusion from this is that there's a fine line between what is considered good fun and what is considered being a dick. Making jokes on a TLP draft is being a dick, while giving good feedback and criticism is good, and the jokes should be saved for elsewhere.

In short, I won't try to get caught up in the fun next time and I'll just report it to the mods if it does happen again.

Troping across the universe...

Alright, questionnaire part two and three. I don't think there was a need to repost, we aren't that dumb, we can check the previous page. I would have also posted answers to part two, but time zones screwed me over and I had to go to school (wouldn't have time on breaks to write full-fledged posts). Answers are much shorter as I don't have much to say here.

• What made you participate in this thread? Wanting to apologise and improve ourselves and prevent another one.
• Do you feel you have anything new to contribute? IDK, tough question. I'll obviously want to come back to TLP eventually and there are those Timeline/ entries I want to add on the first page, but other than that, again, IDK.
• Would you be participating in this thread if the rest of the people involved in this incident were absent? Probably, I think it'd still need the people as I likely wouldn't have made it myself, but I would want improvements and the apology.

Likely topics: Numbers and records and my love for them, humor and its subjectivity, my immaturity, wanting to improve and adding a historical note to the Timeline/ page (seriously, it's just to historise, not make fun of the event).

Summary: I'm a number-loving 2000s manchild who nevertheless wants to take work seriously (as I did have a job during the summer vacation and loved it, I've only started maturing terms of that not that long ago) and improve. The numerical records I want to beat are not bombs/comments, but how many articles of satisfiable or higher quality we have.

Edited by Piterpicher on Sep 11th 2020 at 5:38:00 PM

Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)

An obvious similarity immediately springs to mind: Something started happening in a place I already was, and I went with it because it was part of what I was already doing.

Going with the flow isn't inherently bad, but we need to be better about recognizing when the flow is going somewhere we don't want to be.

Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.

I think what we all had in common was we were linked from TLP/ATT/the forums, and we were already there and wanted to participate as a group and have fun.

We participated in this thread because we wanted to give ourselves some group therapy and atone ourselves for our immature conduct on the draft.

Rock'n'roll never dies!

Wait, I'm unbanned from the TLP despite not posting in the appeal thread. Was that intentional or what?

Well, we did appeal them three days ago. There's this post too.

Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)

I assumed Lu wanted us to appeal again after three days. I didn't appeal again yet but I'm unbanned as well. I guess she counted us discussing stuff in here as appealing?

Edited by mightymewtron on Sep 11th 2020 at 12:24:09 PM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

I had noticed that my TLP privileges are back. I was out somewhere, and I didn't want to use my mobile devices at the time. But I would still answer lu's questionnares anyway. Thanks to both.

• I got involved in the draft from a link somewhere. It resulted with community.
• I got involved with this thread from a link somewhere. It also resulted with community.

Edited by alnair20aug93 on Sep 12th 2020 at 12:18:08 AM

ᜇᜎᜈ᜔ᜇᜈ᜔|I DO COMMISSIONS|ᜇᜎᜈ᜔ᜇᜈ᜔

Alright folks, thanks for submitting your responses. By collating the data, I am hoping to elicit the following:

"It started with the community."

You have all realised 3 key elements to the TLP incident: mob mentality, need for stress relief in the face of a difficult UI, and misconception of what constitutes acceptable fun. I did not even have to address your issues in edit-banned - all of you walked in fully aware what earned you a ban. It was as if you had just been woken from a drunken stupor.

In terms of this thread, we have been successful in identifying 2 common elements: the sense of community and the fact that the TLP needs technical improvements. We have been less successful in identifying one underlying issue: the same impetus that drove the TLP draft to unacceptable levels is what drives this thread. The existence of a community.

It is important that we consider whether distancing ourselves from the community is what will improve us in the end. The "elitist" YKTTW circle (humour me, I still remember it like that) that many of you mentioned also originates from the insular nature of the community. That is why we require distance. Broadening our horizons. Interacting with communities that operate on a different type of discourse.

This suspension was not a punitive action. I could have stopped the comments on the draft with the threat of a ban (if I felt particularly nasty). It was a restorative one. Some of the more introspective posts have realised they spent more time on something of value rather than the aforementioned TLP shitposting. By removing you from the TLP, you have reconsidered and spent time elsewhere. I have little influence on how productive you can be on troping or your own lives, but I can recommend how to redirect your energy.

To answer some procedural questions:

• The suspensions can be lifted now. Do let us know if we forget anyone.
• We will not be documenting this in Administrivia or any related pages. It is highly inadvisable.
• I will lock the thread before I go to bed tonight. You are free to comment, post or do what you feel is most productive until then.

Thank you all for taking the time to participate. This was never a requirement to lifting the suspensions, but it has shown who is willing to work towards it if need be.

"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer

Honestly, this incident has made me realize how unnecessarily snarky I've been, which is a problem I have in real life but doesn't help when I bring it to the wiki. Now I'm catching myself before I add an unnecessary comment not just on TLP, but on ATT and forums. So I appreciate that ban as a wake-up call.

Looking over the TLP history from the past few days, it also seems there have been more drafts that were mod-discarded earlier than three days because they were clearly not feasible (already existing as a trope on the site, violating the 5P, etc). While obviously this responsibility shouldn't be entirely on the mods as the TLP is one place where the community does a lot of the authoritative work (which is also probabl why we spun out of control- we got that collective power high from knowing we could inevitably nuke the draft), it's good to see swift reactions to drafts that could clog up the TLP and lead to trouble if left to sit for the full three days.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

A sense of community is important, but it should to be a welcoming community that accepts everyone (that’s not a total asshole) and helps new people grow. What happened on the TLP was something more akin to a gated community. Not harassing others and scaring off new folks is important. That’s what Discord is for after all.

That’s my own reflection anyway.

So sorry for not replying sooner.

Basically, I participated in this thread because I felt that I, personally, needed a place to vent my frustrations with myself, and see what others have to say. I participated in the incident; do you expect me not to participate in this thread? It’s just nice to all know each other in this way.

Even if some people were absent, I would still participate in this thread. Before, I was talking about the incident in other threads, and talking about it here just seems like the right thing to do here.

So I participated in this thread for different reasons from the incident. I realized what I did—what we all did—was wrong, and couldn’t keep my emotions bottled up any longer.

I’ll go make my appeal now. EDIT: For some reason, I didn’t even need to appeal. I simply got unbanned.

Edited by PurpleEyedGuma on Sep 11th 2020 at 1:10:19 PM

Wow, I was stealth unbanned. Neat-o.

I'm going to try and improve from here on out. For instance, if I need to just de-stress after cleanup work or TLP issues, I can find it on the right-side forums and if I get to posting there more often, I can become part of that community, too. I can listen to my gut more and go to bed at a reasonable time, even if something is happening. Whatever it is is probably not worth the sleep deprivation.

Mainly I want to improve my attitude as a troper, putting kindness and understanding before my tendency to be cynical and snarky.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I noticed I’ve been snarky today myself. I’m worried that I might be relapsing—that I was right.

Don't be so hard on yourself Guma. Being aware means you can correct it. Just give it time.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I think the recurring themes in my answers were me following the crowd and falsely assuming that, because the mods let Mario Pissing slide, what we were doing to the Gay draft would also be fine. The link to the draft was posted in a Discord server I'm in, and I was so amused by the absurd draft and numerous funny comments and edits that I stupidly joined in. Popularity points aren't worth putting someone else down.

Needless to say, if I see crap like this in the future you bet your ass I'm reporting it to the mods. I can promise that.

Hey how you doing well I'm doing just fine I lied I'm dying inside

What made me participate in this incident, and in this thread, and what do my answers have in common?

I participated in the draft in a different way because I had a different reason. I was trying to educate Mareon. I don't know the right way Mareon could have accomplished what they were trying to accomplish (or at least gotten a reasonable compromise), but I knew exactly why that TLP draft wasn't it. It was like I put a "Wrong Way" sign at the end of a freeway off-ramp only to have the blackberry vines of clowning around grow all over it.

I participated in this thread because I realized that while what I did was acceptable, it still could have been better. I didn't contact the mods partly because of Bystander Syndrome and partly because I was thinking "Surely they're already aware of this" because there was a link in the TLP Crash Rescue thread.

In both cases, first and foremost on my mind was improvement — first helping Mareon improve and second improving myself.

---

Seeing so many other tropers point to "community" as a common factor has me thinking. I already felt secure in my status as a member of the TLP community (despite randomly disappearing out of TLP from time to time), I didn't need to clown around with you guys to feel cameraderie, it was much easier for me to feel that cameraderie by remembering the sane and reasonable discussions we've had on other drafts and threads like Trope Launch Pad Adoption Drive and Trope Launch Pad Discard Project and Let's Improve the TLP and On the use of Hats and Bombs.

Edit: Re-reading lu127 saying this...

...once again has me wondering about neurochemistry. I mostly get the community aspect, I get the need for stress relief and looking for an excuse to blow off steam, but... Acceptable or not, what makes the incident an excuse? What's so fun or stress-relieving about being or acting drunk? I've been tipsy before (with responsible company) in an attempt to find out for myself how it could possibly be enjoyable. The attempts failed, it's not fun for me, the part of me responsible for self-awareness and self-monitoring was feeling like a sick or injured cat wanting to slink off and hide somewhere to recover. It was more stressful than being sober. This is probably not a fruitful place to ask, but is there anyone else who, like me, is staring like a baffled alien trying to comprehend a Wild Teen Party?

Edited by Miss_Desperado on Sep 11th 2020 at 1:15:56 AM

If not for this anchor I'd be dancing between the stars. At least I can try to write better vampire stories than Twilight.

Honestly, after this incident, I’m scared to use the TLP ever again. It’s not like I’ll ever have any bright new ideas for tropes anyway.